The two former high-ranking executives in Barracuda's Ann Arbor office — Snider was director of engineering and Suter head of the data storage unit, called Barracuda Backup — left the network security company last October just before its initial public offering. Today, both are busy growing two more tech companies.

Nutshell Inc. and LiftInc. are both headquartered in the same eye-catching, newly remodeled space at 210 S. Fifth Ave. in downtown Ann Arbor — a space replete with the requisite pingpong table, cool wall graphics, standup desks and overstuffed chairs.

This year, the companies took out a three-year lease on the 4,300 square feet of space, which more recently housed the Fifth Forum movie theater and Fifth Quarter Night Club and originally was Swede's Diner. Nutshell had shared space in Barracuda's office on Maynard Street.

Lift is a startup that Suter and Snider, who are both 35, hope will drastically improve the way email is organized through the use of artificial intelligence. The company, which employs 12 including two in San Francisco, is in beta testing and not yet generating revenue.

Nutshell, which offers customer relationship management service to help companies organize and manage sales leads both on desktops and through apps for Android mobile devices and iPhones, has been cash-flow-positive since last summer.

Nutshell also employs 12 and is hiring a few software engineers. It expects revenue of more than $1 million this year.

In 2005, Snider and Suter founded a Carlisle, Pa.-based company called BitLeap, which did data backup and recovery. In 2008, BitLeap was bought by Campbell, Calif.-based Barracuda Networks and its product rechristened Barracuda Backup.

Snider and Suter continued to run the business out of Barracuda's Ann Arbor office. By the time of the IPO, BitLeap was the largest revenue producer of Barracuda's 13 products.

Lindsay Snider

In the meantime, Snider said, he and Suter still felt a need to satisfy their entrepreneurial urges. With Barracuda's blessing, they launched Nutshell in 2011. They put Andy Fowler, a former colleague from Pennsylvania, in charge of building a team while Snider and Suter did their day job at Barracuda.

The pair raised some seed funding from friends, family and angel investors, and Barracuda later led a Series A round of $1.5 million.

In October, with Barracuda's IPO a month away, Snider and Suter, again with Barracuda's blessing, left to join Nutshell and launch Lift.

While Suter is officially the CEO of Nutshell and Snider a partner, Fowler, who has the title of chief technology officer, actually runs the business day to day while the two other men concentrate on Lift.

Guy Suter

"He deserved a chance to see it through. We didn't want to charge in like a bull in a china shop," Suter said. "We'll continue on this new thing and let Nutshell continue on its path."

Matt Self, a vice president of Lancaster, Pa.-based Webtalent MarketingLLC, an Internet marketing company with 20 employees and 60 clients, has been using Nutshell's software for two years. Companies pay Nutshell a monthly fee of $15 per user with no contract required for a minimum amount of time.

"Nutshell manages all our leads and sales activities, whether the leads are from people who visit our website or come in by other means," Self said. Nutshell keeps track of customers and leads and their contact information. It also keeps track of scheduling, sending reminders to employees on their phones about emails or calls they need to make to current or prospective clients.

It also logs the sales-related activities, allowing Self to track what his sales force is doing as a result of Nutshell's reminders.

"For a mobile app, it is tremendously easy to use," he said. "I've tried other customer relationship software, and they're clunky, they're not easy to use, and they're not easy to teach. We've had Salesforce and we've had SugarCRM, and Nutshell is much better.

"I can teach Nutshell to a sales rep in five minutes. Other software products actually schedule conferences you can go to so they can teach you how to use them."

Larky Inc., an Ann Arbor firm that offers a smartphone app to customers' discount programs, is one of Nutshell's customers and an avid supporter.

"Nutshell is a beautiful, simple product that works," said Andrew Bank, one of Larky's founders. "It enables us to keep track of every business relationship we have. It helps us understand the pulse of every relationship."

Suter said he and Snider are trying to decide the best way to build Nutshell.

"We've talked to West Coast and local investors about a possible B round," he said. "We'll talk to a lot more before we decide, which we need to decide in the next three to six months."

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